


The trouble is (I don't know what to say)

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M, Mentions of canon deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey,” he says, plops onto the couch and stretches his feet to the table, Jason’s voice losing a beat somewhere along the way; if it’s a fallout or a hitch, Tim doesn’t know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The trouble is (I don't know what to say)

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea a while ago and decided to write it. It’s a story I wrote mostly for myself, and I for once, wanted to write something truly beautiful. Something powerful. I am not sure I succedeed, but I did enjoy writing this story. Also I wonder how many of you will catch the reference in one of the lines, because for me that reference really makes it. I have to thank len-yan for introducing me to it, thank you! Hope anyone else will be able to enjoy this story, too. Title is a lyric from the song “Strange Education” by The Cinematics.

He’s thinking there’s a shower he needs, a cut he forgot to _not_ unify with the cover of bandages that dried to be an alien, hieroglyphic part of his skin, an incorporated tattoo he’s about to drench and dump into the sink and why there’s a cup he can’t remember, but sometimes his fingers carry things without his consciousness asking why or what for (or maybe it’s his conscious side that understands, that lets those patterns lodge in the back of his skull and on occasion they spread through his synapses and _right_ , it’s one of the things he should fix, too) and if he were smart, he’d have picked up the new batch of bandages that don’t stick this badly from Bruce, and if he were _smarter_ he wouldn’t waste blood on second grade criminals that don’t even smell like Jason anyway, _stupid_.

“How dumb,” he mutters, a greying, cold wind throwing gusts of sounds into his shoulders and even though he’s been touched by Gotham’s fingers all over already, he appreciates the murmur.

The scents get carried in too, distant rain, sea curling salty foam around sharp shores, tired leaves and dying metal, the minutely, faintly haunting scent of fresh blood.

(He wonders how Bruce can stand it; the scent of gunpowder.

For weeks, Tim’s been barely able to walk within ten feet of a crime scene, barely been able to not throw up when the stench of guts and blood and a _body_ hit his nose, barely been able to see past the flicker of a floor and thick wetness underneath his feet, after his Dad was killed.

And he has been angry too. Guilty and helpless and _furious_ , because how could -- how could something as feared, as infamous, as _deadly_ as a gun not protect his Dad?

He couldn’t stand gunpowder, or the shape of a bullet, either.)

Dumping the soaking cloth at the bottom of the sink as he had planned, Tim dabs at the cut with a hiss and a towel, stares at his reflection -- a dry mouth and hair that resembles low branches of a tree, thin lines that curve all the way to his ears, skin that smells of _nothing_ \-- stares, slowly losing the grasp of his focus, as if he’s listening to something outside of the extended line of his sight, to the underneath of his thoughts, he loses recognition of his own face.

(Jason sometimes bangs his head from behind, with his palm or wrist, when Tim’s too foreign to himself, reluctant to terminate the analysis he’s been so bewildered ( _so unfamiliar_ ) with, and Jason bumps into his shoulder, jostles him enough that Tim and Tim in the reflection lose contact, the string of thoughts snapping apart.

“Are you trying to make the mirror make a face at you? Everyone knows that if you stare long enough the mirror is going to make a face at you,” Jason says, glances at Tim and rummages for his toothbrush, sticks it into his mouth for the time being and stretches, forcing his arms upwards until his shirt lifts and his bones crackle, until the flood of pleasant ache subsides.

“And you believe that?” Tim raises an eyebrow; watches Jason open one of the cabinet doors, the thumb of his left hand passing a line through the exposed skin of Tim’s lower back, settling on the cliff of Tim’s side.

Within three seconds, Jason stole whole _cups_ of air out of his lungs. ( _Was the transfer good?_ )

“Sounds a bit dumb. Dumb enough to be true,” Tim says, slopes until his hip is pressed against Jason’s, until there’s more connecting him to a human, living body than to a copy out of glass.

Jason shrugs and grabs his toothpaste, says: “Only _happened_ to dumb people.” and then with a clank something falls out into the sink, knocked down by Jason’s hand.

Jason follows the motion of the fall, furrows his brows when the weapon drops flat to the curve of the sink and looks up at Tim like he’s the strangest person he’s seen, like Tim tried to conquer the world with a fork and a greasy napkin.  

“Why was a _batarang_ next to my toothpaste?” he asks, picking the batarang up and turning it around in his fingers, his fingertips leaving distinct maps on its surface and Tim -- he has no idea.

_Did it again._ (Didn’t he?)

Taking the batarang from between Jason’s fingers, Tim sheepishly, jokingly offers: “In case you had trouble getting the paste out?“ a liar all over again and he steps away from the sink, the worst of it that the lies weight nothing.

“The mirror was _so_ going to make a face at you,” Jason points at him with the toothbrush and huffs, scrubbing a bit too hard at his teeth.

Habits are difficult to break.)

\---

He startles, shivers as the cold catches up to his defenses, the towel slumped over the bandages and painting the spill of water in a rusty dye, Tim’s phone ringing somewhere on the couch, somewhere in another reality that’s as disconnected as a the reality where Tim still has a Dad, where Tim doesn’t have time to do _nothing_ \-- and then he makes a face.

It’s only Jason, bumping his shoulder.

Pressing his thumb to the screen and picking up the call feels more like arriving home than collapsing into his living room had, and the hum of the world behind Jason makes him miss all of him he can think of, down to the stubs of cigarettes he sucks in so close to his mouth, his weight when he’s about to leave for the city, both of them filling up the silhouettes they’re known for, and Tim nearly feels guilty -- _should_ feel guilty -- for craving to feel Jason’s guns on his thighs, for the scent of explosives tucked somewhere in the inner pockets’ of Jason’s jacket and the faint fragrance he uses, and while in the last seven months, Jason mostly used the barrels of guns as a blunt force to knock out people with, he always returns smelling of gunpowder, of a cigarette or two, of dawn pressing into his shoulders.

It’s _weird_ , how something he couldn’t _stand_ became something he couldn’t stand to lose.

“Hey,” he says, plops onto the couch and stretches his feet to the table, Jason’s voice losing a beat somewhere along the way; if it’s a fallout or a hitch, Tim doesn’t know.

He curls his toes.

“You picked it up,” Jason answers, sounds winded, as if someone’s pressing onto his lungs, as if a memory, uncertainty or just plain surprise swept him from the grounds of his scarce composure, his thoughts turning to sinking sand.

Tim slumps lower into the soft, worn depths of their couch.

“Was I not supposed to?” he asks, tired pools of anxiety spilling down his spine, a chilly, pale trickle here and there, curling between his vertebrae, aching in heartbeats when he’s about to run away, when he’s shutting out a moment he’d like to keep, would like to live through after all but it’s --

it’s how they work.

“I can still hang up, you know. I just -- I forgot,” Tim murmurs, closing his eyes, briefly, just to hear everything Jason’s not about to say, just to record enough, _breathe in_ enough to live off of for another day, another week of Jason missing from the mechanics of their apartment, and it’s not _lonely_ that sinks to the bottom of Tim’s feet.

(It’s fear.)

“Nah, it’s -- it’s fine,” Jason breathes out, seems to have dumped his body onto a bed, gravity strengthened by exhaustion, he might’ve returned from a fight. There’s a smile, stuck to both of their teeth. “We haven’t talked in a while,” he says and zips his jacket open, Tim hears it slip down his sides.

“You send me a lot of pictures,” Tim retorts, remembers faded colours and Jason’s odd, crooked angles, portraits of places that resemble adjectives more than anything, traits of things Jason won’t show.  

“Are you telling me that I never shut up?” Jason laughs, sitting up to take off his shoes and Tim pictures the structure of Jason’s movement, learned from overlapping tapes of days and mornings he’s seen him, softer as he’s undressing, closer to the core of his self.

(Tim _really_ has to reconsider watching any more soaps with Dick.)

“I’m telling you that I’m not your _facebook_ ,” he huffs, locking the pleased, warm fondness at the back of his mouth, stores it for later, for when Jason won’t pick up and he will be able to talk, will be able to share everything too open for a call with two exit wounds, for a call that’s not the static he doesn’t have to answer to, where lies aren’t the ones easier to expose, the ones that keep marching onto his tongue.

(It’s what they do, Jason and him. Instead of paper, there’s the glow of a screen, instead of scribbled letters there’s sounds, and instead of misplaced jokes, there’s a raw, bare structure of the truth.

It’s how they work.

Jason and him.)  

“You’re such a brat,” Jason says, announces with fondness that he _doesn’t_ hide, doesn’t tuck away like Tim did and -- Tim wonders if something has changed. If somehow, there’s a layer missing to the machinery they are, if the hood opened to uncover the humming heart of their relationship, if somehow, there is no need to pretend anymore.

“I bet you have your feet on the table right now too,” Jason continues and Tim can’t help the breathless laugh rushing out, rattling his shoulders as he looks at his legs placed neatly on the top of the matted wood, vaguely messy with papers, Tim’s cowl and a magazine.

“Actually … I do,” he admits, idly undoing the zipper on the front of his shirt.

“Did you at least take off your shoes?” Jason asks and a shimmer of being tired, tired down to your bones, slips through, and it’s not about the shoes, it’s not about Tim being a brat or dirt on the table -- it’s about the thing Jason wanted to talk to Tim’s voicemail about.

_Stupid_.

“I at least took off my shoes.” Tim nods, pauses to gather his words, gather them well because it isn’t easy, letting go. (But it’s worse, not letting Jason talk.) “Hey, if you … if you really wanted to talk about something, it’s okay for me to hang up, you know. It really is. I won’t mind,” he says, hoping the sincere tone is getting through, hoping Jason won’t be -- won’t be a stubborn ass about it.

“It was … something stupid.”

Of course he is.

“Tell _me_ about stupid.” Tim sighs, remembers the (too) clean cut, the black knife too near to his mouth, insistent enough to slit his throat into two and just _now_ he remembers he wanted to analyze the structure, has dropped the knife somewhere in the house, somewhere he can’t recall now, somewhere it shouldn’t really be and --

“Did you do something dumb again?” Jason asks; stills like he’s trying to hear the wound on Tim’s body, like he’s trying to see it resonate through his mouth.

“Yeah. Kind of. Got caught off guard by these two losers who wanted to rob a lady. They had a pretty good knife though. For being losers.”

“How off guard are we talking?”

Tim spares a glance at the limp slit on his uniform, looks back to the tips of his knees. “About five inches off guard. Got my arm. Left one though. Stopped bleeding already. It’s fine.”

Jason is silent, for a moment, seconds stretched across both of their perception, shared, linked through fingers and the sense of them leaving, Tim doesn’t know if he’s anticipating something.

(Because Jason is.)

“I had to kill someone,” Jason says, finally, quietly, like he’s relearning to talk, to move in sync with all of his mouth, all of Tim. Like he has never killed someone before.

Tim swallows the sudden tremble of fear.

“Are you okay?” He asks, just as quietly, wonders if Jason is anticipating something angry from him, something utterly disgusted.

(Because Tim’s only terrified.)

“Yeah, I’m -- fine. Not a scratch. But the fucker got close. Nearly got me.” And Jason sounds bitter now, angry about something Tim doesn’t ask about, his jaws sewn shut by the chance of Jason disappearing into a body, dissipating into a corpse, breaking down to cells and bones and _nothing_ that Tim could scoop up and keep. He’s transfixed, struck by the chance of Jason smelling like his Dad.

(Of smelling like any other corpse.)

Jason speaks again, words fluttering, tones all wrong, like he’s desperate not to get thrown away, like he’s trying to convince himself he’s someone good, someone that is still valuable, someone still important. “I … couldn’t think of doing anything else at the time. Anything else than blowing his brains out, that is. He -- got me on my back and his gun was not even an _inch_ away from my freaking forehead and I -- was faster. There was no time to think about anything else. It was about who’s faster. _Only_ about that.”

(And Tim knows. What Jason is scared of hearing.)

He closes his eyes again.

“I’m not _Bruce_ , you know. I get it. I know that sometimes there’s _nothing_ else to do. I’d rather -- I’d rather you kill that guy, if it means you’re not the one that’s dead. I won’t condemn you for staying alive.”

Tim’s eyes open and he’s sure Jason’s have closed right at the moment but -- that’s alright. They can take turns in looking at the world.

“Just,” he continues, a string of confusion tugging at his tongue. “Why weren’t you wearing your helmet?” he asks, and there’s a shift, a second where tension drops out of Jason, a second where Jason finally places his feet on firm, solid ground.  

“Got broken, just the day before. I got punched,” he answers, a laugh hidden somewhere between his lungs and his lips and Tim stills, can’t help the incredulous feeling crawling through his throat, falling right into his voice.

“ _Who_ the hell punched you?” he asks, and this time, the laugh is right at the top of Jason’s mouth.

“Someone who punches really fucking hard, obviously. But Star returned the favour right after so, we don’t have to worry about that guy anymore. He’s in jail with a killer headache right now.”

“Good,” Tim answers, a heavy, strong doze of weariness soaking his bones, the timbre of his voice.

(Jason hears it, too. Hears it even through the deception of the static and the low whir.)

“Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

\---

_“By the way, I kinda really love the pictures. So - don’t stop sending them just because I was a jerk about it, okay? Just -- don’t send me pictures of the guy you killed, alright? Cool.”_

Jason holds the phone by mere inches of his fingertips, presses a button he can’t see and there’s the unfinished horizon of his shoulders, his nose cut off at the right side and the bed stretching through the room, littered with things he’s going to pack away, and he tries not to drop the phone, tries to steady it, as the plastic starts to slide down his palm.

_(You sure you weren’t in my room, Tim? The mess matches your MO to a fricking T.)_

\---

Tim winces, his leg cramping as he hops around the floor, his coffee tipping over the hem of the cup and staining the cotton on his feet, as Jason’s voice flows from the speakers, as soothing, as welcomed as nothing else could be.

Carefully, Tim puts the coffee down and rubs his calf.

_“I’ve heard things got rough in Gotham, for a while. You know what, Tim? I actually miss your stupid face. So don’t get it killed. Got it? Good. Now listen --”_

\---

_“Jason. I think that -- I think that somewhere between people being dead and people getting revived -- that somewhere between those points -- my brain broke. It’s like -- after Steph got back, after Kon and Bart got back -- it’s like I expected_ everyone _to return. I -- I haven’t been dealing with the fact that it’s not happening. I’ve talked about my Dad being dead but I never talked about expecting him every day to reappear, to -- to just be here again. And instead, I’m the one that’s -- I realized, I realized yesterday, that I keep walking around our old house. In our apartment. I just, I expect things to be somewhere else than they are. I expect the places to be different. I end up in the middle of a room, thinking “why is this a bathroom? It was never a_ bathroom _.” I’m -- I’m so creeped out. Creeped out by all this. By what it could mean. I’m -- scared. Jason, what do I do?”_

(And Jason catches the last seconds before Tim hangs up.

_“We’ll fix it, Tim. Somehow. We’re getting it fixed.”_ )

\---

Tim’s dozing, sprawled across the couch on his belly, slack yet he looks like a young river, in lazy control of the smooth fall of all of his limbs, the back of his feet peeking out from the bulk of the couch, everything else covered, elbows and wrists placed in line with his sides as if he’s collapsed from where he was standing, still in front of the armrest, for seconds, before he let his consciousness get executed, before he dropped down and -- considering the war between two gangs and the police combined Jason had heard about -- it wasn’t a moment that impossible to picture.

Jason crouches down next to the nest of Tim’s head, pretends he’s not creepily watching his body live on its own, pretends he’s not extremely fond of this person and pretends he’s only been gone for a dawn or two, lost underneath the undergrounds, just below the city, just waiting for Tim to finally miss him too.

He sighs, smiles, says: “Don’t freak out and punch me.” and then waits, as Tim proceeds to do exactly that.

Only -- Jason is faster, Tim is still drowsy and it’s as if his body is a second (or ten) behind his thoughts, his fist colliding somewhere past Jason’s ear, his side cramping from the sudden, sharp twist, and when he focuses at last, he only tries to punch Jason again, hissing as his side stabs his neurons again.

“Don’t wake me up like this, you jerk!” Tim huffs, sitting up, not fully understanding Jason’s right in front of him, that he’s not yet another memory grasping to become alive, that he’s not another ghost, that he’s -- “Do you even know what kind of two weeks I just had?!” he yelps, and Jason shrugs.

“I have no clue.”

And he slowly grasps Tim’s shoulders, holds him still, kisses his mouth with a short press of his own lips, with a windswept warmth he couldn’t shake off, with the scent of gunpowder and cigarettes and the ozone of dawn on his skin, and then he asks:

“Wanna tell me?”


End file.
